Heart To Heart
by ginnyweasley777
Summary: Harry and Ginny have a heart to heart during a detention.


Heart To Heart

A/N - I originally wrote this little one shot after reading a prompt on livejournal. Thanks to Amelie for the beta work.

* * *

"Damn, damn, damn," muttered Ginny as she hurried down the dark corridor to the Potion's classroom. "Detention with Snape on top of twelve inches due for Flitwick..."

"Talking to yourself is a sign of madness, you know," shouted the portrait of a wrinkled old wizard with a large wart on his chin.

"Shut up," growled Ginny as she approached to door to the classroom. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the door.

"Enter," came the voice of Professor Snape. Ginny walked in to find him glaring down his hooked nose at her. "You're late," he said icily.

i_By one minute,/_i thought Ginny furiously as she looked around the classroom, her eyes skimming over all the pickled animals in jars, and saw that Harry was also there, already getting ingredients out of his bag.

"Take your seat next to Potter and get on with your work. Neither of you are leaving here until I've got a completed potion from each of you," continued Snape maliciously.

Ginny moved across the room to the table where Harry was and began setting up her cauldron. "What have you got detention for?" asked Harry quietly as he bent his head on the pretence of checking the fire beneath his cauldron.

"I misread the instructions and my potion blew up in that Slytherin git, Harper's face," replied Ginny just as quietly. "What about you?"

"Nothing new, Snape knocked my flask over again, and Hermione had already cleared up my potion," he said, shrugging.

They stopped talking then, Snape sent a particularly malevolent look in their direction. They worked in silence for about ten minutes until there was a loud knock at the door. The door opened and a small Slytherin boy walked in, panting as though he'd just been running.

"Can you come, Professor?" he squeaked. "Blaise Zabini and Draco Malfoy have just been hexed in the Entrance Hall, but they don't seem to be able to remember what happened to them or who did it."

Snape stood up immediately and swooped to the door like an over-grown bat, robes billowing behind him. "Go and fetch Madam Pomfrey and tell her what has happened," he told him. The boy scurried away and Snape turned to Harry and Ginny. "Keep working," he said, his black eyes glinting dangerously, "And don't leave until I get back."

The heavy door swung shut behind him, and Ginny breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank Merlin he's gone," she said, swiping at a strand of hair that was in her eyes.

"Yeah," agreed Harry, "At least now I stand a chance of actually getting this right." He turned back to his Strengthening Solution, which was hissing angrily and had started to give off copious amounts of foul smelling steam.

Ginny searched around in her bag and then straightened up again. "Have you got any Abyssinian shrivelfigs, Harry? I used mine this afternoon. I put too many in my potion and I think that's why it exploded."

"No, you'll have to look in the store cupboard," replied Harry. "What happened when it hit Harper, anyway?" he asked curiously.

"Well, it definitely worked as a Shrinking Solution," laughed Ginny, feeling her mood lightening. "His whole head started to shrink, and so did his hands."

A deep chuckle escaped from Harry as he tried to laugh without inhaling the fumes from his potion while Ginny walked over to the student store cupboard to look for some shrivelfigs. When she came back, Harry's potion had, thankfully, calmed down, although a pungent smell of rotten eggs mixed with dirty socks remained.

"Ginny, do you reckon Ron fancies Hermione?" asked Harry suddenly as he stirred his potion. "It's just that he's been acting strange recently, and they've been going off together quite a lot too."

Ginny looked at him curiously. "Why, you're not jealous are you, Harry?" she teased.

"What?" he yelped. "No, of course not! I just wondered, that's all."

Ginny turned serious. "Well, in that case…" she trailed off for a moment. "It's not really my place to tell you, but they're together actually."

"And they didn't think to tell me?" he asked, aghast. "And you knew!" He looked at her accusingly.

"They thought that you might feel left out if you knew," replied Ginny carefully. "I only found out two days ago, and that was because I caught them kissing when I was running late for Charms. For what it's worth, Harry, I said that you should know."

"Thanks," said Harry prodding his potion again.

"Are you okay with them being together?" asked Ginny cautiously.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I am. It just would have been nice of them to tell me though, you know?"

"They just did what they thought was best, I suppose," replied Ginny. She turned the page of her Potion's book and read the next line of the instructions. "What about you?" she asked, wanting to lighten the mood a little. "Is there no one you fancy?"

"Don't you want to take Dean back?" countered Harry. "I know he wants you to."

"I meant it when I finished with Dean and he knows it," replied Ginny. "Anyway," she grinned, "Don't change the subject. I was asking about i_you_/i."

Harry grinned back, having regained his good mood. "I know you were, but perhaps I just don't want to reply," he said evasively, running a hand through his hair.

"Ah ha!" announced Ginny, "So there i_is_/i someone then!"

"I'm not telling you," smirked Harry. "Is there someone else that you fancy then, or not?"

"I'm not telling you," said Ginny casually, laughing at the disgruntled look on Harry's face. "It works both ways, Harry."

"Witch!"

"I know I am!"

"You know," said Harry, laughing, "This has got to be the most fun that I've ever had in a detention, especially in one of Snape's."

"Me too," agreed Ginny as she turned back to her potion. "Seriously, though, Harry, all joking aside, if there is someone who you like, you should tell her."

"Really?" questioned Harry, looking at her intensely.

"Yes," replied Ginny honestly, "She'd want to know."

"And what if she doesn't like me back?"

"You won't know unless you tell her how you feel. You might be surprised, Harry," replied Ginny softly.

"Why's that then?" asked Harry, propping one elbow up on the table and leaning in towards her.

"Well, you're actually a funny, smart, charming person underneath it all," replied Ginny, becoming a little breathless when she noticed just how close she was to Harry.

"I'm not like that with everyone though, only those who really know me," said Harry quietly.

Ginny could feel her cheeks reddening, and she wasn't sure if it was the heat from the potions or the intensity of Harry's piercing gaze. In that instant, as Harry looked into her eyes, Ginny was sure that he could see into her soul where all of her emotions and feelings were laid out bare for him to see.

Unfortunately, Professor Snape chose that very moment to walk through the door. Ginny had never hated him quite as much as she did then.

"Well now, what do we have here?" he sneered, taking note of how close Harry and Ginny were when they jumped at the sound of his voice. "I thought I told you two to keep working, or do such simple rules not apply to you two i_Gryffindors_/i?"

"We have been working," muttered Harry as he hastily ladled a sample of his potion into a flask while Ginny ducked her head and did the same.

They both took their potions to Snape and handed them to him before they quickly gathered their things and escaped from the dungeon. Neither spoke during the walk back to the Gryffindor common room; both were wrapped too tightly in their thoughts. Ginny paused in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady and said to Harry, "Tell her, Harry, whoever she is."

"I will," replied Harry, nodding vehemently, "I promise."

Ginny nodded too and then climbed through the portrait hole after Harry.


End file.
